


Like Flying

by britomartisofcrete



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types, Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan
Genre: First Kiss, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Getting Together, Kinda, M/M, Post-The Heroes of Olympus, Pre-The Trials of Apollo, Snow, Snow Day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-27
Updated: 2021-02-27
Packaged: 2021-03-18 05:07:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,131
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29728794
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/britomartisofcrete/pseuds/britomartisofcrete
Summary: Nico has never experienced just a snow day for the pure fun of having a snow day: he's never gone sledding, built a snowman, had hot chocolate, come inside soaking wet after a long day of playing in the snow to find the fire going and then changing into warm clothes before curling up in a safe bed.So when Camp Half-Blood has a snow day, Will wants to give Nico the experience he never got to have as a kid.
Relationships: Nico di Angelo/Will Solace
Comments: 13
Kudos: 86





	Like Flying

**Author's Note:**

> This is set after HoO and before ToA, in the winter before Apollo arrives. Or you can pretend ToA never happened! That’s what I usually do.

Before Nico had even pulled the door to his cabin open all the way, Will was halfway through a monologue.

“—and I don’t want to make you do anything you don’t want to but come  _ on _ , Nico, they’re letting it snow for  _ once  _ and—” there Will stopped to gasp in a big breath, before catching himself in his own excitement and looking down at his feet. “I just think it would be fun.”

He glanced back up at Nico, as if noticing his appearance for the first time, with his plaid pajama bottoms and t-shirt and bare feet and sleep-mussed hair, and wrinkled his nose. “Did you just wake up?”

Nico rubbed his eyes. Why was it so  _ bright _ this morning? “Yes.” Then he thought it might come off as mean if he left it at that. “What are you doing here?” Not much nicer, but it would have to do. 

Then Nico’s vision cleared and he finally got a good look at Will who was bundled up in a heavy coat, a thick pair of pants, and a pair of bright red galoshes that swallowed his feet. The look was pulled together by what looked to be a homemade scarf wrapped around his neck and a wool hat jammed over his blond curls. And that was when Nico took stock of the landscape behind Will, and his mouth dropped open.

The green was covered in a foot of snow, already marred by overlapping tracks from campers and nature spirits alike. Everything— the cabins, the Big House, the dining pavilion— was shrouded in the stuff. It was like the camp was choking on all of it.

Nico pushed Will aside and stepped through the doorway onto the steps of his cabin to gape at the sight. “It  _ snowed. _ ” 

He heard more than recognized Will’s huff. “You’re literally the last to know. It’s almost noon, and you missed breakfast.” The unsaid  _ again  _ was something Nico chose to ignore in favor of watching little Harley from the Hephaestus cabin lug a celestial bronze sled toward the strawberry fields, Nyssa trailing behind at a safe distance.

“I haven’t seen this much snow since… since…” Nico couldn’t finish the thought. Since he had first come to Camp Half-Blood in Apollo’s sun chariot. Since Westover Hall. Before that… it was blurry, but he was pretty sure it had barely snowed in Venice and in Vegas. The cold registered all at once. He looked down and saw his bare feet had disappeared in the pile of snow outside his cabin door.

Will pushed his way into Nico’s cabin behind him, tracking in a hefty amount of snow on his boots. “Come on, I came to convince you to go sledding with me.” There was the sound of the chest at the foot of Nico’s bed being thrown open and the rifling of clothing. “Do you have  _ any  _ warm clothing? I swear to Olympus, I don’t know how you got this far without dying of hypothermia—”

Still entranced by the slow, fat snowflakes that were continuing to fall, Nico stayed in the doorway for a few more moments. He reached out with one pale hand and caught a few, just to watch them melt in his palm. There was a shout from across the green, and Nico looked up to see Valentina Diaz shrieking and flailing, trying to get snow out of the hood of her coat. Evidently, the Hermes cabin had gotten a head start on snow-related pranks, and Valentina was the first victim.

After a minute of watching Valentina berate Connor Stoll, Nico’s feet started to go numb, so he turned to head back into his cabin and found Will staring at him, an odd sort of smile on his face and a jacket of Nico’s (new— an early birthday present from Reyna) dangling in his hands.

“What?” Nico asked, instinctively raising a hand to flatten his hair, which, he realized with a wave of the self consciousness feeling he always had around Will, probably looked like a harpy nest.

“It’s, uh, nothing,” Will said, looking down. “You’re just an idiot for standing in the snow barefoot. Get in here, don’t you have any warm clothes?”

“Why?” 

Will just looked at him again. “It’s snowing.”

If Will hadn’t made fun of him at dinner yesterday for rolling his eyes too much— something about them getting stuck that way— Nico would be firmly looking at the ceiling. As it was, he resisted the urge. “I saw.”

“So…” Will’s cheeks colored a bit, which Nico convinced himself was because of the cold. “I thought we could go sledding. The Hephaestus cabin made sleds last night, and they’re letting everyone test drive them.”

Nico raised an eyebrow. “Sounds dangerous.”

“Probably,” Will shrugged. “But Chiron made them promise no explosions or firearms, so it can’t be that bad, right?”

Nico took stock of his options. His bed, with its kicked off sheets and pile of pillows, looked more inviting than ever. But Will was looking at him with such enthusiasm and hope, and the shock of cold from the open door made falling back asleep seem feasible, so he might as well take this chance not to disappoint Will.

“Let’s go sledding.”

It took an embarrassingly short amount of chiding for Will to get Nico into a sweatshirt (Texas Longhorns, left in Nico’s cabin by Will the last time he came over, which Nico tried not to think about), his new jacket, and a Camp Half-Blood hat— new in the camp store this winter, according to the Hermes cabin’s marketing, and the same garish orange of the t-shirts. 

After Will finished dressing Nico for the cold, the two of them started trudging across the green and Nico let slip to Will that he’d never actually gone sledding before.

“What?” Will exclaimed, with entirely too much shock, Nico thought. 

“That shouldn’t be surprising,” Nico said, stopping for a minute to kick through a snow drift by the Demeter cabin. “I grew up in Venice, then Las Vegas. Not exactly winter wonderlands.” 

“But what about—” Will cut himself off. “Oh, right.” 

Nico glanced up to see Will looking abashed. They’d talked about what had happened after Nico left Camp Half-Blood the first time enough that it was basically casual conversation at this point, but he knew Will still wanted to tread carefully around him and his spotty past. While he appreciated the effort, Nico was trying desperately hard to be a normal teenager having a normal friendship with Will, after years of fear and running away from just that, so he tried to lighten the mood, let Will know it was okay. “Yeah, not much time for playing in the snow when you’re hiding out in the labyrinth.”

Will snorted, and Nico’s shoulders relaxed. “I’m picturing King Minos making a snow angel.”

That almost made Nico stop in his tracks, startled at the joke. Then he shoved Will’s shoulder with his own, trying to hide his smile. “That’s not funny.”

“Then why are you laughing?”

Nico tried to rearrange his face into a scowl, but judging by the way Will was shaking with silent laughter, he wasn’t successful, so he settled for shoving a handful of snow down the back of Will’s coat. The sight of Will floundering around trying to shimmy ice out from under his clothes almost made up for being woken up so early. 

Unfortunately, that meant evading Will’s many consequential attempts to push him into one of the piles of snow, until Nico finally asked where they were going.

“There’s a good hill for sledding down by the strawberry fields,” Will said, sticking his foot out to try to trip Nico up, which Nico easily dodged. “It’s hard to understand Harley when he gets excited, but I think he said it goes all the way down to the creek.” 

“Oh,” Nico hummed as they made another turn toward the strawberry fields. He could already start to hear the gleeful shouts of the campers in the cold air. Shivering, he looked longingly back at the Hades cabin. “I’m cold.” 

“That’s the  _ point _ ,” Will said, sighing dramatically and reaching over to wrap an arm around Nico, which somehow made him shiver more. “Stop being such a baby, we’re almost there. And after, we can go to the Hypnos cabin. Alice said they’re making hot chocolate.” 

Nico fully groaned. “Let’s go now, then. I didn’t have breakfast, remember?”

“Oh my gods,” Will said in a long-suffering sort of way. “Here.” He pulled something wrapped in paper napkins out of his pocket and handed it to Nico. It was two hashbrowns from the dining pavilion.

Nico looked up at Will, trying not to let his surprise and admiration show so plainly on his face. Will was always doing small selfless stuff like that for Nico, as if he didn’t even think about it, which made Nico hate it more. Stuff like that made Nico feel like such an inadequate friend. It was like being a good person came so naturally to Will that he didn’t even have to think about it, and even worse, Will didn’t even expect gratitude, because he knew Nico well enough that he didn’t show verbal appreciation, and he could probably sense how grateful Nico was anyway. Nico also kind of hated that Will knew him so well.

“Hot chocolate isn’t breakfast,” Will said, by way of explanation. “And stop dragging your feet and pretending like you’re not excited to go sledding with me.”

A sudden flush rose to Nico’s cheeks. He grappled for a quick retort, but all he came up with was, “Shut up.” 

The smug grin on Will’s face stayed put all the way to the hill behind the fields, where a group of the year rounders were already laughing and chatting, pointing occasionally off into the distance. A few paths were cut into the snow from previous runs with the sleds, and every few minutes, a camper would sail down the hill or come trudging back up from the bottom.

“Will, you’re here!” Austin Lake ran up to them as best he could through the slowly growing piles of snow. “And Nico!” he added, with barely contained surprise. “I didn’t think Will would be able to get you up.”

“Well, he did,” Nico grumbled, although Austin’s energy was more than a bit infectious.

“He’s never gone sledding before!” Will told Austin gleefully as they walked back toward the group of campers together. “He’s very excited.”

That got Will an elbow to the ribs, but before Nico could defend himself, a voice came from a few yards away. “Wait, Nico, you’ve never gone sledding before?” Harley, who was plodding slowly back up the hill, squeaked out. The sled he was pulling was big enough to fit two people, but from the way Harley was struggling, it was heavier than it looked. “You have to go next, then!” 

“Uh.” Nico looked around. Suddenly, everyone was looking at him expectantly and everything was happening in double time. Harley’s eyes were wide and hopeful as he held out the rope rein to Nico. Nico looked back to Will, then at the sled again. “I don’t—”

Then Will was next to him, his hand was squeezing his upper arm in reassurance. “Don’t worry, Death Boy, it won’t hurt you. I’ll even go with you if you want.”

“How—” But Nico couldn’t even get his question out before Harley was pushing him toward the track down the hill that the previous sledders had carved out and looking up at him with such delight that Nico couldn’t bring himself to object. “Okay, fine. How do we—”

Harley straightened the sled in its path and gestured for Nico to sit. He clambered awkwardly onto the contraption and pressed his feet into the two little stirrups at the front, noticing that the hill was a lot steeper than it looked from a distance, and was just starting to feel self conscious about what his hands were doing when Harley said, “Okay Will, now you.”

In one swift, graceful motion, probably far more graceful than Nico had been, Will positioned himself behind Nico, swung one leg to each side of the sled, and sat down comfortably behind him. His chest was flush against Nico’s back, and his legs were on either side of him, keeping him steady. Nico knew the redness that must be creeping up his neck couldn’t possibly be blamed on the cold.

That would’ve been bad enough, if Will hadn’t wrapped his arms around Nico’s middle and pulled him tighter. Nico’s stomach graduated from butterflies to backflips. Could Will feel his heart pounding?

“Okay,” Nico said, cursing his voice for cracking. “So what do we—”

He was cut off by his own shriek of surprise as someone— probably Harley, aided and abetted by the other campers— gave them a hard push and they sailed down the hill.

It lasted all of a minute, their ride down the hill, around the corner into the woods and onto the creek bed. But it was glorious. For that one beautiful minute, with the winter air racing past Nico’s face, where all he could see was the snowflakes flying fast toward him and the whiteness of the landscape and the gray-yellow of the afternoon sun behind the clouds and all he could feel was the cold on his face and the warmth of Will’s arms around him and his breath on the back of Nico’s neck, he felt invincible. He thought somewhere in the back of his adrenaline-addled mind,  _ this must be what Jason feels like when he’s flying. _

Then it was over too soon, and they were sitting still on the bank of the creek, just within the woods’ limits and out of sight of the other campers. Unconsciously, Nico leaned back into Will, eyes unfocused on the trees and the sky. They laid there together, in silence, just breathing. 

“We should get back up,” Will murmured, his arms still around Nico, the breath of his words puffing onto the shell of Nico’s ear.

Nico shivered. “Probably.” 

But they stayed where they were, drinking in the stillness. Nico didn’t want to let go of the moment.

“Nico?” Again, barely more than a whisper.

He only hummed in response. 

“Thanks for coming with me.” 

Nico reached for Will’s hand where it rested just below his sternum and gave it a little squeeze. “Anytime.”

It wasn’t long before Chiara Benvenuti and Damien White came careening around the corner in another one of the Hephaestus sleds, Chiara spewing expletives that Nico could, unfortunately, translate, and Nico and Will had to get up. The four of them walked back up the hill together, Will and Nico mostly quiet, Chiara and Damien engaged in their usual banter. 

Hours later, after another few rides (Harley even insisted on one ride with Nico) and a snowman building competition turned snowball fight, Nico was soaked and freezing, his fingers having lost their feeling about six snowballs ago. By that time, though, the sun was starting to go down, and everyone who was left on the hill started to trudge back to the dining pavilion for an early dinner. 

In the spirit of the snow day, the godly parent table rule wasn’t enforced and the year rounders crammed into as few tables as possible, enjoying the heat from the braziers and regaling the crowd with stories about what they’d done that day. After an hour, Nico was starting to feel properly warm and sleepy as he listened to Lou Ellen describing the charm she’d used to bewitch a snowman into pelting snowballs at the Ares cabin windows and to Nyssa convincing Harley that making Chiron a centaur-friendly sled was probably not a good idea. His head was just about to droop onto Will’s shoulder when he was shaken gently back awake.

“You can’t fall asleep yet,” Will said, low enough for just Nico to hear. “I promised you hot chocolate from the Hypnos cabin.” 

“But ‘m tired,” Nico said. He couldn’t even bring himself to care that everyone could definitely see the way he was leaning into Will. “You’re always waking me up.”

“Because I don’t want you to miss anything.” Nico could hear the smile in Will’s voice. “And we should probably go soon, the Victor twins look dangerously close to an argument with Damien about who  _ really  _ won the snowball fight.” 

Even Nico knew it would be best to stay out of that, so he begrudgingly got up after Will. They said their goodbyes to the other campers, and started the walk over to the Hypnos cabin in the near complete darkness. When they knocked, Clovis answered the door, rubbing his eyes blearily, his hair messed up in a way that reminded Nico startlingly of how he himself had woken up that morning.

“Hey guys,” he said through a yawn. “What’s up?”

“We came for hot chocolate,” Will told him. “I heard you guys made some.”

“Yeah, we did,” Clovis waved them inside, where a surprising number of campers were conscious, sitting on the bunks or the floor and sipping from steaming glass mugs. “Made from real, high quality chocolate. We owe the Stolls big for that one. For here or to go?”

“Uh—” Will glanced at Nico.

“To go,” Nico answered for him. “I’m gonna take mine back to my cabin.” When Will looked crestfallen at that, Nico felt a little twist of joy in his stomach. “Don’t worry, you can come, too. I just need to get out of these wet socks.”

Will’s face lit up.

Clovis passed them two paper lidded cups and waved them on their way with another large, infectious yawn. As the door to the cabin closed behind them, Nico suppressed a yawn of his own.

The trek back to Cabin Thirteen seemed to drag on forever, until finally they were stepping inside the warmth of the dark building and sighing in relief. Nico made a beeline for the chest at the foot of his bed, digging out a pair of thick socks and his pajamas, and went to change in the bathroom. “You can borrow some clothes if you want,” he called to Will. “You’re not allowed to sit on my bed while you’re all wet.”

A few minutes later and Nico was far more comfortable, and when he left the bathroom, he saw that Will had changed and was already curled up under the blankets, hands clutching his cup of chocolate. 

Nico grabbed his cup and joined him, sitting at the foot of the bed. For a long while, the two of them just sat together and sipped their drinks in silence. Nico watched the last few snowflakes drift by the window, illuminated by the torches on the outside of the cabin. He felt warm and sleepy and satiated, like he was still in the Hypnos cabin, about to fall asleep at any moment.

There was a rustling as Will reached over and put his cup on the floor next to the bed before lying back on Nico’s pillows. “Today was such a good day.” 

Nico hid his smile behind the edge of his own cup. “Yeah. Thanks… um, thanks for getting me up.”

“I  _ knew _ you didn’t mind that much,” Will said, in a voice that might’ve been cocky if he hadn’t been just as sleep-heavy as Nico.

“Whatever.” 

Will craned his neck to look out the window and frowned. “I can’t believe it’s still snowing. Activities tomorrow are gonna be a nightmare.  _ And  _ I still have to walk back to my cabin through the snow.”

“No, you don’t.” The words fell out before his brain-to-mouth filter could kick in. Will just looked at him in surprise. “Just stay here tonight.”

“But that’s not allowed.”

“Gods, Solace, live a little,” Nico said, making a valiant attempt at nonchalance. “It’s not like Chiron’ll find out, he stayed in the Big House all of today. And there’s only two other people in your cabin. Austin and Kayla can put themselves to bed.”

Will looked out the window again, contemplative.

“Unless you wanna walk back in the cold. And the snow.” Nico wasn’t sure why he kept trying to convince him. 

Heaving a great sigh, Will acquiesced. “Okay, you got me. I’m ready to fall asleep anyway.”

It was then that Nico realized the implications of Will staying. Would he want to sleep in Nico’s bed? Would he have to wake him up? What would—

“C’mere,” Will mumbled without opening his eyes, effectively cutting off Nico’s internal conflict. He was holding his arms open, looking so warm and inviting that Nico didn’t even think before putting his cup on the floor and lying down next to him, allowing Will to pull him close like he had on the sled only a few hours earlier. He could feel Will’s heartbeat under his hand, steady and fast, like Will was a little nervous, too. For some reason, that eased some of the tension Nico was carrying.

They laid there together for a long while, and Nico’s eyes were just starting to feel heavy when he felt Will shift a little next to him. “Nico? Are you asleep?” It was the same mumbly whisper, like Will himself was halfway to sleep.

“Yes. Stop waking me up,” Nico said without any bite.

Will’s chest vibrated with a soft laugh, and Nico tilted his head back to look at Will’s face. In the dim lighting of the cabin, he saw Will was already looking back, his face so close that their noses brushed. 

“What?” Nico asked.

“Hm?”

“Why are you looking at me?”

This time when Will laughed, Nico could feel the breath of it. “Just lookin’.” 

There were a few long, sleepy moments as they just kept on looking at each other, Nico unconsciously syncing his breath with Will’s, too tired to worry about feeling self conscious or nervous. He felt every detail of the movement as Will inched a little closer, his eyes half closing and his breaths lengthening. It was like they both knew what was coming but wanted to savor the moment as long as they could. Nico’s eyes slid closed at the gentle brush of lips on his own. 

For a long second, almost too long, that’s all it was. Just a graze of contact, breathing the same air. Then Will seemed to get the message that Nico wasn’t about to back away, and he leaned in further and the whole thing became far more real.

Nico had thought about kissing before, when everyone on the Argo II and at camp seemed to instinctively pair up before his eyes, but he’d never really considered the act of it. He didn’t know how he was supposed to know what to do, but his drowsy mind drowned out the overthinking as he let Will take the lead, feeling how he moved his mouth and letting it happen, experiencing the press and release of pressure in an out-of-body sort of way. He let his mouth fall slightly open against Will’s, feeling his warmth and softness in a way he could have never hoped to before.

Somewhere around when Will’s hand reached up to cup Nico’s face and after Nico’s heart, which had jumped into his throat, sank back down to beat against his ribs, they slowed their rhythm until it was just a slow, gentle press of mouths and long breaths in between, feeling the presence of one another in the dark. The thrill in Nico’s stomach calmed to a soft sense of contentment, the feeling of coming home. 

Nico could feel Will’s movements slowing and knew it wouldn’t be long before they were both asleep. He felt the lazy smile on Will’s mouth, like they had all the time in the world, no rush, no world to save or future to worry about. He supposed that was true now, and failed to suppress a smile of his own against Will’s. 

With a quiet hum, Will wrapped his arm around Nico and pulled him even closer, Nico almost automatically sliding a leg over Will’s, grateful for his warmth. 

In his last moments awake, held steadily by Will, Nico at first worried that things would change. That this meant something was going to be different, or that he’d have to shift everything that he’d already been struggling to figure out again. But then, this was him and Will. It was alright. And probably, Nico supposed, it had been coming all along.

It was going to be alright. They’d talk about it in the morning. 

Or maybe not, Nico thought as he drifted more fully into sleep. Knowing Will, and knowing how he knew Nico, they probably wouldn’t need to.

**Author's Note:**

> To me, Will and Nico in The Hidden Oracle seemed like a very new couple, but a longtime friendship (6 months-ish is long for demigods, right?), so it does make sense to me that they’d have gotten together right before Hidden Oracle happens.
> 
> This was also partly inspired by the snowstorms currently ravaging the US. I live in the Northeast, so I've been okay, but I hope that if you're in Texas or anywhere else that is currently struggling, you're staying safe and warm.


End file.
